Illness as a metaphor

The fact is that the traders, unscrupulous or otherwise, constitute a significant segment of the support structure of the Bharatiya Janata Party which rules in Delhi. And, in a situation when elections are to take place soon and the party8217;s fund managers are obviously concerned, the government can hardly afford to appear to take stern action against traders. Such is the hegemony of the traders over the BJP that the party is even prepared to risk the displeasure of the consumer who would otherwise be king when the polling takes place. It is thus that the awesome might of the state in Delhi is rendered null and void by an organisation whoseself-image is that of a sethji-bhattji bania-brahmin party. Its PFA prevention of food adulteration body thus busies itself testing the raw materials supplied to the kitchens of the Prime Minister and other VIPs while traders merrily mix Mobil in mustard oil.

But there is a deeper malaise too behind the recurrence of diseases that we thought we had left behind in the past. We had thought that the horrible tales of cities getting depopulated on account of plague spread by rats could be put behind us till Surat reminded us a few years ago that postmodernity is interchangeable with premodernity if modernity is ignored.

The fact that kala-azar continues to rage even today must make it obvious that the days of Black Death are not over. Even malaria, over which we had proclaimed premature victory, has reappeared and those of the dengue-bearing Ades have augmented the ranks of the two best known disease-carrying mosquitoes, the Culex and the Anopheles. If dropsy is back with us, can scurvy be far behind? Infact, a very large number of malnourished children suffer from easily preventable rickets.

There is surely something more than more coincidence behind these. While the Prime Minister adds 8220;Jai Vigyan8221; Hail Science to Jai Hind, and exultation over the bomb is encouraged as a political device, why is it that easily preventable diseases are allowed to rage? Even worse, why is that commercial greed and political cupidity can combine easily to produce the deadly dropsy? There is an illogic ascribed to the premodern which is used to explain away phenomena like female infanticide, different superstitions which take a toll of human lives and disregard of public hygiene on account of the imperfections of civil society. But on the grand Mobius strip which is India, where past, present and future are on one continuous plane there is no reason why the abuses of yesteryears should not make their visitations repeatedly.

In many respects we have not only missed modernity but indeed are today taking pride in thatmisadventure. Take the advertisement placed by the Delhi administration on the occasion of Independence Day this year. It had pictures of many leading freedom fighters and makers of the nation but there was one significant omission. Jawaharlal Nehru was left out. Now there are many reasons why the Sangh Parivar that rules today should find itself wanting to suppress the memory of Nehru, not the least important reason being Nehru8217;s secularism. However, there is one other aspect of Nehru that many members of the medieval-minded Sangh Parivar feel uneasy about and that is the modernist vision of India8217;s first prime minister. He succeeded only partly and his failures are glaring, particularly in the areas of social infrastructure.

There is no denying, however, that Nehru had a modernist vision. He had an idea of India which was quite different from those of the self-confessedly superstitious and astrology-driven present minister for science and technology or of the bigots of the Bajrang Dal or,for that matter, of the blatantly avaricious supporters of the Sangh Parivar who do not mind making a profit from trade in people8217;s miseries. Nehru8217;s achievements were far short of his proclamations. There is one, which stands out: he once declared that he would see to it that blackmarketeers and hoarders would be hanged from the nearest lamp posts. As it happened, lamp posts remained unfestooned by economic offenders but the very enactment and even occasional implementation of laws like the Essential Commodities Act put some fear into the minds of traders. The Bharatiya Janata Party has succeeded in removing that fear. While liberalisation has meant different things to different people, to traders by and large it has meant that opportunity to seek super-profits since the message has gone out in the last few years that the regulatory aspects of the state are obsolete and it is the ideology of aggressiveness which is the most respectable. The Sangh Parivar has succeeded in reversing a lot in thepolitical economy of India.

The Sangh Parivar has also reversed even such modernising mood and the commitment to scientific temper as existed earlier. Superstitions combined with unscrupulous profiteering are a deadly combination. It is this truth that the victims of dropsy are being subjected to.